Tag: heart

Why we keep ourselves busy

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Our blocks of pain, sorrow,  anger and despair always want to come  up into our mind consciousness, into our living room, because they have grown big and need our attention. They want to emerge but we do not want  them to come up because they are too painful to look at. So we try to block their way. We want them to stay asleep in the basement. Because we do not want to face them our habit is to fill the living room with other guests. But whenever we have ten or fifteen minutes of  free time these internal guests will come up and make a mess of the living room. To avoid this we pick up a book, we turn on the television, go for a drive, we do anything to keep our living room occupied. When the living room is occupied, these unpleasant internal formations will not come up.

Thich Nhat Hahn, Anger

Making every thing new, each day

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A child kicks its legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, Do it again; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead.  For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But God is strong enough… It is possible that God says every morning, Do it again, to the sun; and every evening, Do it again, to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike: it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

G.K. Chesterson

Becoming one who sees

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Despite the incredibly warm weather, the berries have appeared on the bushes in the garden. They reminded me of this quote,  and its encouragement to see into the heart of things, happening in each moment of the day. Sometimes we are just to preoccupied and hurried to notice.  We let life – and heaven – pass by,  unnoticed.

Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes…

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh


Noting, rather than reacting

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Buddhadasa Bhikkhu said, “If there was to be a useful inscription to put on a medallion around your neck it would be ‘This is the way it is’.” This reflection helps us to contemplate: wherever we happen to be, whatever time and place, good or bad, ‘This is the way it is.’ It is a way of bringing an acceptance into our minds, a noting rather than a reaction.

The practice of meditation is reflecting on ‘the way it is’ in order to see the fears and desires which we create. This is quite a simple practice. Many methods of meditation are very very complicated with many stages and techniques – so one becomes addicted to complicated things.  However, the more simple we get, the more clear, profound and meaningful everything is to us.

So with the breath of the body, the weight of it, the posture of it, we are just witnessing and nothing, observing how it is, now, in this moment. The mood of the mind, whether we feel bright or dull, happy or unhappy, is something we can know – we can witness. And the empty mind, empty of the proliferations about oneself and others, is clarity. It’s intelligent, and compassionate. The more we really look into the habits we have developed, the more clear things become for us.

Ajahn Sumedho, The Way it is

Noticing what we see

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Another English writer to help us, maybe not as literary as Wordsworth, but just as insightful.

“Holmes you see everything!”  Watson exclaimed.

“I see no more than you,

but I have trained myself to notice what I see“, said Holmes.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier

Being genuine

Karl Duffy2 Comments

The ancients used to say that God was “simple”, in the sense of wholeness, without parts, just simply being. We strive for that, trying to be coherent and consistent in our words and deeds, and not divided, but fully present in our attention to others.  Here is a nice story from the Zen tradition which shows what it would be like to be genuine in our words and relationships.

When Zen master Bankei died, the old blind man who used to sit outside the temple said how sad he was. ‘You see, since I am blind I cannot watch people’s faces, so I judge their character by the sound of their voices. And it is this way. When most people are given the news of another person’s good fortune or success they, of course, congratulate the fortunate person, but virtually always beneath the words of gladness, I hear another note, a secret note of envy, envy that it is not they themselves who have been so fortunate. Again, when most people are given the news of some calamity that has befallen another person they, of course, express their sorrow towards the afflicted person, but virtually always, beneath the words of sorrow, I hear another note, a secret note of pleasure and satisfaction that it is not they themselves upon whom the calamity has fallen. With Bankei, however, it was not so. When he expressed gladness at another’s good fortune all you heard was gladness. When he expressed his sorrow, all you heard was ­sorrow.’